


Run your hands through my hair

by Becassine



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Boys In Love, Domestic Fluff, Hair Washing, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Schmoop, Self-Acceptance, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:29:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becassine/pseuds/Becassine
Summary: Shuri decides that Bucky needs to love the man he sees in the mirror a little more. Cue a hair mask and Bucky googling "self-care Sunday".
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 23
Kudos: 102





	Run your hands through my hair

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this a while ago but decided to finish it off when darling Minnie aka [musette22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musette22/pseuds/musette22) was having a bad day. The lyrics come from Ariana Grande’s song 'My hair'. This is completely self indulgent schmoop and I make no apologies for it.
> 
> Looked over by [oh-i-swear-writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_i_swear/pseuds/Oh_i_swear) but any mistakes are wholly my own.

Bucky eyes up the container suspiciously when it’s tossed towards him, catching it out of the air on instinct more than anything else and glancing across at Shuri. “What is it?” he asks as he reads the label.

“It’s a hair mask. I’ve fixed your mind and you’ve got a new arm when you stop being stubborn about wanting to wear it,” she says, grinning at his furrowed brow as he stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Your hair is my next project.”

“My hair is fine.” Bucky remembers, in parts, how proud he used to be of his looks. How he’d pomade his hair, save up enough to go to the barbers or get Steve to cut it, chiding him - _only a bit Stevie, don’t cut a chunk out of it when I got a date with Katie_ \- to use some of that artistic skill when they didn’t have money to spare. He remembers how it felt to have a dame running their small fingers through it, how it felt to have Steve do it too. How that had changed after the serum, Steve’s delicate, long fingers becoming thicker, more powerful even when Steve was trying to be gentle. 

He doesn’t look in the mirror much nowadays. It had hurt at the start, his reflection flashing up unwelcome memories of other times he’d caught sight of himself in the mirror or in a pane of glass. He’d always felt unsettled back then, feeling nothing but _emptiness_ at seeing his face. Now, after everything, he isn’t exactly happy about his looks: his mutilated shoulder, the scars he’s attained over the years, the thousand-yard stare he’s acquired and that pinched look that Shuri calls his ‘kicked puppy’ look when he’s uncomfortable. 

“Your hair could be better,” Shuri insists, backing towards the entrance of his hut. “Try it and see and whilst you’re at it, use that tablet I gave you and google self-care. I have a feeling you’ll like it, Bucky.”

And with a wink and a wave of her hand, she leaves. Bucky remains where he was, only jolting back to himself when one of the goats bleats at him from the doorway.

“Self-care my ass,” he mutters, putting the container in the bathroom and forgetting all about it for a few days.

::

He finally uses it when he spends a day helping the village elders with the dung heap. Bucky doesn’t know if they were fucking with him and that there’s a far more efficient way to get fields fertilized but he’d helped out anyway. It was the least he could do after they’ve said nothing about a brainwashed ex-assassin living amongst them and being part-babysitter, part climbing frame to the village children. Not that Bucky had asked for that but they seem to find him mysterious enough to always be hanging around.

But smelling of goat dung? Bucky draws the line at that and so after a long, hot shower followed by a decadent soak, he eyes up the container still on the side of the vanity and half-stands in the bath, reaching for it before dropping down into the water with a _slosh_. It’s hard with one hand to get the sweet-smelling creamy gunk on but he manages it and then sits there. 

What is he supposed to do for half an hour? 

Sighing heavily - how is _this_ relaxing exactly? - he gets out of the bath a second time to track down his tablet before settling back in and tapping onto one of the books he’s promised Steve he’d read. Something about a wizard called Harry.

::

After that, it’s a weekly occurrence. Bucky likes how shiny the stuff makes his hair and how easy it is to get a brush through it after he rinses it off. His hair turns more and more lustrous over time and although he toys with cutting it now and again, he ultimately doesn’t because it feels _different_. He feels different. He isn’t the same man he was in 1944 and he doesn’t want to look like that man yet. Maybe, some day, but not now.

Plus Steve _loves_ the hair. He’d pretended he didn’t at first but Bucky isn’t an idiot. He notices how Steve’s eyes will track to his hair when Bucky ties it up or takes it down, when he shakes the strands out, when he idly braids it (one of the few reasons to wear his new arm in his opinion). He’d flushed when he’d seen how one of the village children had braided flowers into one of Bucky’s braids one day, his nose brushing against the braid and smelling sweetness as the two of them fucked, lazy and slow, that evening. A “you smell good, Buck” mumbled just before he tumbled into sleep.

So yeah, Steve has a thing for his hair.

And Bucky has ultimately taken to self-care Sunday as a _thing_ once he’d googled it much to Shuri’s delight (it was just about worth the constant teasing). He often ends up wearing his arm on Sunday to do a hair mask, put on a face mask, wash and dry his clothes as well as look at any clothes that needed repairing. If Steve is there to watch, he usually looks on in bemusement and with fondness as Bucky goes through his routine but doesn’t participate himself.

Bucky has had no illusion that his uninvolvement would stay that way however. Steve has wanted to be involved in everything since he was knee high to a grasshopper and especially wants to be involved in _anything_ Bucky is doing. 

“It’s cold,” Steve’s voice cuts into Bucky’s thoughts as he basks in the afternoon sunlight, on the sheltered bit of the lake that the villagers know is _their_ spot and doesn’t approach. “Seriously Buck, it’s cold and it’s wet. You _like_ this?”

“It’s been on for ten minutes, Stevie,” He doesn’t look up from his book, his tone warm and amused rather than irritated. “Needs to be on for another twenty. Face mask too.”

Steve is quiet for a moment. Bucky doesn’t expect more quiet time. He knows how Steve’s mind works and he’s rarely still unless he’s asleep. It’s a toss-up over what activity he’ll suggest though and so he waits. “Can I draw you then?”

“Knock yourself out,” Bucky replies, looking up to grin at Steve as the other man turns towards Bucky, repositions his sketchpad against one well-muscled thigh. He feels that keen blue gaze down to his bones, feeling the same thing he always does, that Steve can see him down his _bones_. And okay so Steve looks a little ridiculous with the white cream swirled amongst the gold of his hair, the green-ish clay smeared across his forehead and top of his cheeks, just skirting the line of his beard. “You know you don’t gotta ask.”

“I know,” Steve smiles at him, the gesture somehow mischievous and affectionate at the same time. “You’ve always been my favourite subject to draw.”

Bucky smiles lazily, hums his assent and turns his head back to his book. It’s another ten minutes or so before he hears the rustle of paper as Steve moves but he doesn’t look, unsurprised when he feels the press of a kiss on his spine. “What’s this for?”

“Do I have to have a reason?” Steve rumbles lowly, hand curling around Bucky’s flank as he presses another kiss lower on his spine. Lower. Lower again.

“No you don’t- Christ,” Bucky groans when Steve bites at the swell of his arse. He snaps shut his book, dog-earing the page in his impatience. “Can you really not wait ten minutes?” 

Steve chuckles, the sound sending a shiver through Bucky. “I’ve never been good at waiting, Buck. You should know that by now.”

“Fine,” Bucky half-twists, looking down at Steve with a cocksure smirk. ”But no touching my hair.”

Who is he kidding? Self-care Sunday is _so_ much better when Steve is there.


End file.
